The Storm
by Fordgirl
Summary: A short piece from Christine's POV, set after Phantom. Not E/C (for once). Please R&R.


Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom, sadly enough.  
  
A/N: It's been forever since I've posted under this account because of my work on 'Battle of the Titans' and 'Holy Matrimony'. This idea, however little, could not be ignored so easily, and I therefore am compelled to write it as an experimental abstract piece. Please enjoy, as always. (This piece is based primarily on Susan Kay's Phantom.)  
  
Feedback: Please review, you know you want to. If this piece is well received, I shall write one for every character.  
  
  
  
  
  
I could not sing for him that night- my voice stuck in my throat as I tried to lift myself into some sweet melody for the sobbing infant who lay in the cradle before me, helpless and frightened. Around me, the ardent chill of the still unfamiliar house - it would never be a home, no matter how desperately I desired it to be - permeated everything: my body, my heart, my spirit. I drew my shawl around me, desperate for warmth - it would not come.  
  
The child cried on.  
  
No song would come; no motherly instinct washed over me as I looked down on what was, in effect, my creation. There was love, certainly there was love; perhaps that was the problem. The child before me bore an untold burden. He was my past, my present - my future - all my hopes, my dreams, rode on his small shoulders. My son, my only child: he was born of the turmoil that seemed to brew eternally in my soul, and only through him could that chaos be stilled forever. That night, I could only pick him up and clutch him to my breast protectively - defensively. I needed him as much as he needed me.  
  
It was, indeed, an unnatural storm.  
  
Outside, the rain was coming down in torrents - the night was alive with a cacophony of thunder and the ceaseless howling of the bitter winter wind. 'The anger of the angels, the wrath of all that is divine,' I pondered silently, 'or merely the catharsis that must always come, a new world born of the old through systematic cleansing.'  
  
Rebirth.  
  
The child had come; he grew still in my arms as sleep at last overcame him. I bore him happily; he was my one buoy as I stood, staring out into the night. Yet, part of me longed to run out into the storm, to feel the judgment at hand, be it for vengeance or renewal. I longed to let the world fall away around me, to feel the heavy raindrops break upon my skin, to feel the restless wind flying through my hair and casting it wildly outwards towards oblivion. Deep down, I felt there might be peace in that.  
  
An unnatural storm: a storm to wake the spirits of the past. . .  
  
I felt him there; with me, with the infant in my arms. I knew he was gone, lost to us forever in this life, and yet I felt him still - around me, beside me, within my very soul as it reached out into the uncontrolled darkness of the storm. The rest of the house was empty - my husband had been called away on business - and yet, I felt a familiar stirring in my mind. A gentle coercion, a silent longing - I felt at once complete as the shadow of the old fell across the trappings of the new.  
  
The old song awoke.  
  
Passionately I strained to hear as the dark refrain softly reverberated in the air. I found myself carried away, into the night, into the storm, into the peace of forgiveness that I had so long sought out. The child stirred as I swayed to the intangible melody.  
  
Perhaps, in some way, he heard it, too.  
  
The music of the night, the music of the past: the music of his genesis. Yes, he must have heard it - no one, not even the young, can escape the chains of their history.  
  
Such a storm as this I have never seen. . .  
  
Life, my life, seemed to wash away in that moment. The pain, the anger, the guilt; they all disappeared. For one brief moment, it was all reconciled. . .it was all blissfully simple. The child, the Mother, the Father. . .  
  
A terrible storm, a wonderfully terrible storm. . .  
  
My moment of peace died quickly; the music faded and was gradually replaced by the wind and the old, familiar silence. I fell from the enraptured delight of the lost soul found, I felt as Icarus must have in that final plummet.  
  
The wings of the angel had melted, and all that was left was me; ingénue, Mother, protégé - frightened, confused child. My love was real, it was vital, and it could not be denied no matter how badly I fought it.  
  
I saw two people foundering in that storm.  
  
Christine Daae, bride to music incarnate, eternal mistress of the fiery and undeniable music of the night. Christine de Chagny, wife and love of the Vicomte de Chagny, his companion, his counterpart. Wretched they seemed in that tumult, wretched and alone, suppressed and denied. They wept the tears that I should have shed myself so long ago - they came together, they embraced, they heard that distant ethereal song, and then they were gone.  
  
The wings of the angel had melted, and all that was left was me. I clutched the child in my arms tighter still. He bristled under the pressure, and began to cry. I closed my eyes, I shut the past away once more.  
  
The song came to me once more. I sang, my voice steady, my heart firm. I placed Charles back into his cradle, and he slept again in the innocence that the young bear so unknowingly, live in so obliviously, and lose so quickly. I almost envied him, almost. . .  
  
It was an unnatural storm.  
  
What had raged so fiercely died suddenly: the clouds parted and the first light of the morning fell through the window and before my feet as I stood in the small nursery. Once more, there was calm and I fell into it. Never understood and always conflicted, I fell back into the peace that embraced me so distantly and comforted me objectively with its warm silence.  
  
In my solace, I was no longer myself, but a marionette. I cast my doubts aside and embraced the reality that bloomed in the newly won dawn.  
  
In my solace, I knew that reality is not always what it seems.  
  
In my solace, I longed for the storm. 


End file.
